A exposure of current history, soon forgotten.
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Thursday

2004

ABF learning. In Sweden there exists what is known as a workers’ educational union study organization (ABF) that arranges so called study circles, since 1912. On their homepage the following can be read:

“ABF is Sweden’s largest organization of study circles with 57 member organizations and over 1 million participants annually. ABF activities of today range over extensive areas, from study circles, culture for children, youngsters and adults, to seminars, lectures and society debates on hot topics.”

At ABF a new course has been established in 2004, led by the Swedish Palestine Groups in the capital Stockholm. On the curriculum, which is partly financed and supported by the Swedish unions, one ca read the following:

“The Palestine Question

This study circle wishes to strengthen the arguments for those who wish to act in the Palestine question. The historical background of the conflict is treated as well as the daily issues, international law, the role of EU responsibility and the boycott question. We look at how Israel’s basic ideology, Zionism, can be related to democracy, expansionist politics – and the constant ongoing crimes against international law. Can a Palestinian state live in lasting peace next to a continuous Zionistic Israel? Does current peace plans leave room for a just peace? In co-ordination with the Palestine Groups in Stockholm.10 study hours, 5 times, fee 100 krThursday 18:00 at the ABF house”

The following single sentence however, should give adequate and revealing hints as to what this class really is all about. “We look at how Israel’s basic ideology, Zionism, can be related to democracy, expansionist politics – and the constant and ongoing crimes against international law.” Microscopic Israel’s “expansionist politics” has in reality so far been to hand back the Sinai desert, which Israel gained control over during a defensive war in 1967, in return for lasting peace. An area that is more than twice the size of Israel today. Anyone with the slightest interest in the political ideology Zionism can pick up a copy of Herzl’s The Jew State, and there is even a good book on the subject in Swedish, written by the former Rabbi in Stockholm, Marcus Ehrenpreis, Selected Writings from 1944, about Herzl’s fate. Or the Anthology on Zionism by Svante Hansson (1972) about the further discovering of the roots of the ideology and how it developed. For poor students there is a free copy in translation available online as well. But what about the constant Arab Muslim terrorism against Zionists – and people in general – and international law all over the globe? That is something not mentioned at the presentation of this specific class. One can, bearing in mind the earlier events that have occurred several times in the streets and public places in Stockholm and elsewhere, wonder if stone throwing and harassment against elderly Jewish survivors from the Holocaust, perpetrated by masked mobs and hooligans, is also part of the curriculum?

In yet another public call in DN the Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders protest against the plans for a new proposed bill that will further endorse homosexual marriage, or “partnerships” as they are called in Sweden. However, subsequently some very prominent leaders for the Swedish Jewish communities, including 39 signatories in total, feel forced to openly protest represented by Rabbi Horden, in a DN article. Included with the signatories is the Stockholm Rabbi Philip Spectre as the first signatory on the following statement:

“Nowhere is it explained that Meir Horden is only the rabbi representing the rather small orthodox part of the Stockholm community. It will further be made clear that Rabbi Horden has not received any consent for signing this call in an official capacity, neither from the orthodox part of the community, nor the community board at large… We wish hereby to make it very clear that Meir Horden only represents himself and not the Jewish communities in Sweden.”

There are no visible similar protests from the Muslims or the Christians groups that were represented by Imam Abdal Haqq Kielan and a number of Christian communities.

Before the conference on genocide that Sweden is arranging and hosting, the Historical Museum in Stockholm contracts the Jewish born Israeli, now Swedish citizen (with emphasis on Jewish born Israeli as it will later turn out) Dror Feiler, to arrange a contribution at the museum. The whole event that eventually turns into a charade is of course preceded with expensive public commercials in order to get as much boost for the exhibit as possible. On the Stockholm subway there are huge posters, the size approximately 2 x 3 meters, portraying the face of, at that time probably for the regular Stockholm commuter, an anonymous smiling woman. It is a nicely arranged portrait photo of a young Muslim woman wearing a hijab, the Muslim headscarf. This is something that is not uncommon in the streets in Swedish society of today, and can in fact often be seen on the subway. On the poster one can read in large print the English “Making A Difference”.However, what most of the Swedish public at this time didn’t know is that this particular woman is a mass murderer. It was described to the Swedish Jewish community through the Jewish Chronicle in the previous year’s last issue, exactly how she “made a difference” for a group of Jews and Arabs who were out eating family dinner.

…”A Cousin of our friend Danny Koren lost his son at restaurant ‘Maxim’. The boy’s mother was severely injured and lost her parents, her brother and a nephew. The brothers’ other two children are in critical condition; one of them has lost both eyes and sustained brain damage, which yet cannot be determined.The bomber chose the restaurant’s most frequented area and her bomb belt seemed to have been at head level next to a sitting 10 year old child. Danny’s cousins, the families Almog and Steir is one of the families annihilated by this bomb attack; three generations in each.”…

Then a rapid sequence of events takes place when the exhibit opens, as the art display becomes an international hot potato to handle. The invited guest, the Israeli Ambassador Zvi Mazel, namely literary sees red on January 17 when he recognizes the mass murderess’ picture in the neatly arranged installation, sailing daintily on a ship bearing the name “Snow White” on a sea of blood. The Ambassador protests against what he, according to his later statements, perceives as a glorification of a terrorist. Kristian Berg, who is in charge of the museum, says, when asked if there is political agenda behind the artwork, “No, there is no provocation behind this installation”. The Swedish Foreign Ministry is also upset and “demands an explanation” from the Israeli ambassador, as they claim that it is “unacceptable that artwork is being destroyed”. What the ambassador saw was so called artwork, consisting of a pool filled with red water the color of blood, and a small boat bobbing around. The sail of the boat is the same photo of the smiling terrorist as the large posters in the subway. There is also a poetic text to go with it (which the following media race analyses to pieces), and the whole installation is framed with the classic tunes from Bach’s Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut. The installation is called “Snow White and the Madness of Truth.”.

When these news hit Israel, it takes less than a day for a online protest letter to see the light, gathering almost some 7000 signatories, during the first day only.

The artist, Dror Feiler, later had to change the music to another version, since he downloaded the version he used from the Internet without authorization from the rights owner, who then testified; “I visited Dror Feiler’s "Snow White" installation and was deeply disgusted with it.” The one testifying this is Sweden’s largest classical music record company CEO, who filed police complaints of theft, when quoted in Jerusalem Post “he didn’t even care enough to find out whose recording, with which artists, he had stolen, mutilated and unlawfully exhibited; odd behavior indeed from someone who so vehemently defends his own ‘art’.”On January 28 the Swedish Radio P2 revealed that Feiler had changed the music to a version with the opera singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. And like some of the Swedish Jews remember, she was a member of the German Nazi party. She later denounced her membership – but then again, who didn’t?

In the Swedish media blubbering self-proclaimed experts and political commentators and other groups study in detail the installations’ intentions in order to find the right excuses and accusations for editorials against the “arrogance” of the ambassador who had the nerve to criticize a piece of art – art is holy in Sweden – art, which of course didn’t have the slightest intention to be a provocation towards anyone, and particularly not Israelis. It is said, among the Israeli critics, including the artist himself of course, that the ambassador “destroyed art” when he showed his discontent by spontaneously protest against the glorification of the terrorist Hanadi Jaradat by ripping out the one of the electrical cords and overturning one of the spotlights, which then fell into the pool. The art creation however is perceived exactly in the same way, as the ambassador did, as a glorification, by the terrorist attack’s survivors and relatives and the terrorist’s own parents as well, according to Expressen on January 19, 2004.

“JENIN. An art scandal in Sweden is the subject of the day in Jenin, suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat’s hometown in the West Bank.Her parents are satisfied with the stir – and with the crisis between Sweden and Israel. … “Their ambassador tried to destroy artwork with her picture, so she came into the spotlight again.”

Proud parents

The father says that he is both proud of her bombing – one of the bloodiest terrorist acts during the intifada, that killed 21 Israelis, both Jews and Arabs – and that she once again is serving the Palestinian cause. He wholeheartedly supports suicide bombings as the Palestinians’ only weapon …I would like to thank the Jewish artist in Sweden that made the beautiful artwork with Hanadi, says the mother Ramah, 53.”

It also seems like the father never heard of civil negotiations as a” weapon“ of choice.The relatives of the victims, including also the Arab victims’ relatives, claim to be insulted by the art creation.

“The artist exploits our blood

HAIFA. Relatives to the victims of the suicide bombers are deeply upset by the art creation at the Historical Museum in Stockholm.- The artist exploits our blood, it is repulsive, says Tony Mattar, part owner of the blown up restaurant Maxim, and who lost three family members in the terrorist attack.36-year-old Tony Mattar, an Israeli Arab from Haifa, is proud of the Israeli ambassador. – He acted like a human being, just like I would have done.

Blown to pieces

Mattar’s uncle and two cousins were blown to pieces when Palestinian Hanadi Jaradat, 29, detonated her bomb in the midst of the crowded restaurant on October 4 last year. Mattar himself was in the kitchen during the explosion – it saved his life.A small memorial plaque at the entrance of the restaurant honors the murdered. The rebuilt restaurant was far from crowded yesterday evening.Several of Mattar’s friends were among the 21 killed at Maxim. It’s a popular meeting spot for Jews and Arabs – and this was evidently the reason for the Islamic Jihad to send their bomb carrying murderess exactly to this place.”

If both the Arab victims of the homicidal terror and the murderess’ parents see the installation as a glorification, can it perhaps be so that they actually could be right, and could they possibly have preferential interpretation rights before the collected elite of the Swedish cultural establishment? The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism, organized a protest campaign via email where more than 10 000 protest letters were sent to the Swedish government, a government representative later called it an “email bombing” from Jews all over the world, apparently feeling insulted by it and calling it ”the worst in history”. So while a Swedish government representative childishly complains about “email bombing”, with no human death toll for certain, Israel has for a long time been subjected to attacks with real bombs. The Kafkaesque absurdity of this affair seems limitless. Then some anonymous persons organize their own little “artwork” outside the Israeli embassy, where passers-by can read the graffiti on the concrete barriers outside the entrance (for prevention of car bombs etc.): “Crush the Nazis, liberate Palestine” – illustrated by the symbol of peace.

March 3, 2004. The Chairman of the Swedish police council says that the Genocide Conference in total required 1500 police officers in charge of security, which only for the police alone cost 76 millions SEK. That amount by itself could break the annual budget of the police, which could result in forcing the police to cut down on personnel, at this at a time when there already exists an extreme shortage of police officers in Sweden.

And now the infamous artist Feiler’s Jewish heritage is displayed and used very much like an alibi in personal interviews. Aftonbladet (AB) was first as they reported on January 20, that “He is an Israeli Jew”, and on January 25 in DN it continued with the headline ”The Jew that made the ambassador see red”.One can also read that Feiler claims that he has killed people “in combat” and that he remembers the friendship with his former comrades in the army, comrades who would instantly come rushing to his defense. After the exhibition Feiler and his mother in Israel have received death treats.So, who is this Dror Feiler, the artist who is being given plenty of space in the Swedish media, with letters to editors and given the opportunity to display his version of art in governmental run museums which resulted in an incident that gave echoes all over the world?Feiler has – of course – among other things his own website JIPF (Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace) where one can read that he, together with two other Swedish Jews, visited a UN conference:

“Report from the UN meeting in May 2002

Tuesday May 14. The UN general secretary was greeted by a international group of Jews that opposes the Israeli politics and occupation”…

They clearly are against the Israeli politics, which includes the “occupation”. One wonders however; do these Jews believe that they alone are FOR an Israeli-Palestinian peace – and does this mean that the remaining Jews – us – are AGAINST any such peace…?

“The three Swedes in the group were the composer Dror Feiler, former Israeli citizen and chairman of the Swedish group JIPF, Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, the pediatrician Henry Ascher, a Jewish Palestine activist and member of KPML [far left-wing extremists], and the translator Ken Schubert, Jewish peace activist and writer in the magazine Palestine Now.”

It also says on their webpage that they are against Sharon’s politics, and that the elected prime minister is not at all spokesman for the Jewish people in Israel. However, who this person is, or should have been, it doesn’t say. But if the Palestinian part of this club is the same Palestine Groups that earlier have organized protest rallies where Holocaust survivors have been chased along the streets of Stockholm, is not clear. The rest of the Jewish members in this group are, conveniently enough, not named.

Another JIPF member also has his own network , which has been formed for the sole purpose to boycott Israel, and is run by a certain Lasse Wilhelmsson. Wilhelmsson seems to have been very busy during the past years of the beginning of the new millennium. He also happens to be a member of SPG (Swedish Palestine Groups). Under the chapter “success” he has been maintaining a handy archive with names of even more Swedes in support of boycott. The previous year he was one of the signatories on the urgent call for boycott, and was later also given media space in the daily SvD, with his chronicle starting with his claim that “Israel is not a democracy. In reality there is apartheid Zionism in power.” (It was later translated and found its way to Yitzchak Shamir’s network). The chronicle was reciprocated and Wilhelmsson’s arguments torn to pieces by Eli Göndör, counter pointing and dissecting the previous embarrassingly obvious distortions and lies. Two days later the Stockholm chairman of JIPF responded in SvD claiming that Wilhelmsson acted alone in this matter and that JIPF had no part in it. Only a month later Wilhelmsson found some new friends and also co-signed a chronicle in DN. In SvD he was introduced as a member of JIFP and of the municipality council of Täby for 23 years (an area north of Stockholm), where he served for four years on the municipal executive board. In DN he is introduced as a teacher and journalist. Nevertheless, his writings have appeared on the Al-Jazeerah network where a descriptive bio also portrays him as woodworking instructor. While he seems to have an impressive as well as diverse background, it’s soon becoming pretty obvious the more one reads his writings, that this woodworking teacher isn’t the sharpest of tools in the shed.Ambassador Mazel had already gone public and on February 20, in Expressen, one could read:

“When it looked like the flames where about to die out, The Israeli ambassador added new fuel to fire on Tuesday at the art quarrel and he accuses the media – and the Social democratic system – of being anti-Israeli.”

It was further stated in the article:

“Zvi Mazel finds however a shining exception in the Prime minister Göran Persson – he is a “good man”. But “the party is a large one” says Mazel. The Social Democratic party secretary Lars Stjernqvist says, “This is all of course totally without grounds” through his press secretary Daniel Färm. Stjernqvist chose to not comment any further.”

Later, during a TV interview for Swedish Channel 4 on February 23, 2003, Feiler (and the ambassador) get the opportunity to speak for their cases. It was revealed that the only reason Feiler wanted to serve in the Israeli army was in order to learn “how weapons work”, something which for him could be useful “the day the revolution comes”, and partly because he would, as he claimed, be able to report “extremists “or “right-wingers”, i.e. e. the possibility to tell on his serving comrades should they ever make any mistakes in the line of duty ”as soon you commit any crime, go against the rules, against civilians I will file complaints.” He testified to have been an informer to his officers. And later in the interview spoke his view regarding the Arab refugee problem:

”The founding of the state of Israel caused a catastrophe… they have expelled… I don’t know… 700 000… 800 000 Palestinians that with time has increased to become 3 or 4 millions, and most of them living in refugee camps, both in Gaza and in the West Bank and outside, in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and even more.””Israel has to take responsibility and acknowledge their part in the creation of the Palestinian problem.”

The last sentence of the statement is interesting. The well renowned journalist Joseph Farah, of Arab origin himself and CEO of the World Net Daily, is of a diametrically opposed opinion, which can be read in his chronicles and heard on his video seminars, both available online, free of charge. One of his chronicles “The world's collective amnesia” was written as early as in 2002 with, as usual, a number of references and quotations from Arab leaders’ statements at the time, of urgent calls for the Arabs to flee – against the Israeli urgent requests for them to stay, debunks a whole bunch of myths, and his conclusion in the chronicle is:

“It makes no sense to expect the same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create.”

The art quarrel was summed up by Leo Lagercrantz, editor of the cultural section in Expressen on January 23:

“The cultural left doesn’t care that Jewish children are being harassed in Sweden.During the last year I have – as editor for Expressen’s debate page – received a number of calls, emails and letters from devastated parents, relatives and teachers that time after time tell about harassment, threats and violence against Jewish children in Sweden. … But facts remain: When the Historical [museum] order a creation by Dror Feiler, who already in 1988 stated his support for the intifada and who openly support and endorses an armed revolution, you most certainly know what you’re getting.

The cultural left continues to take offense by the accusations of anti-Semitism. Each time it capsizes into Jew hate it defends itself in the classical manner with the usual “it’s only a question of art” or “satire” or ”freedom of speech…”No one seems willing to discuss what it is really about; that it sucks that Swedish children are being harassed in the year 2004, because they are Jewish.”

Per Ahlmark told a historical anecdote in DN on January 24, telling of the same museum that 18 years earlier with the helping hands of Muslim fundamentalists, was spreading the classic anti-Semitic “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, (which is originally a communist forgery) and concludes with regards to the exhibition for the martyred terrorist:

“To romanticize this or to make excuses for her actions at the museum on Narva road is a insult to us all.”

This spectacle was noticed by another Swedish author, Nils-Eric Sandberg, who in a lengthy article also concludes:

…“Just a sad reflection

In Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet, and Expressen I have found only two criticizing comments – both made by outside columnists; Marie Söderquist in Expressen and Per Ahlmark in DN. The fact that everyone on DN’s cultural pages defend the “art creation” is not surprising, since Per Wästerberg gave up and left the position of editor-in-chief 1978 and has left DN’s cultural news desk with a monopoly for the leftists. Almost every piece published has been anti-liberal, anti-market economy, anti-American, anti-Israel. Ignorant authors such as Helle Klein and Johan (Jenny) Ehrenberg have been praised to the skies by critics who are, if possible, even more ignorant.But since Herbert Tingsten became editor-in-chief in 1964 Dagens Nyheter’s leading pages have become rather pro-Israeli and very critical towards all anti-Semitic tendencies.I know this for a fact: I was a writer at DN’s leading pages 1964-2000.Now DN has two articles that criticize the Israeli ambassador’s reactions and actions, and defend the “artwork” that celebrates the mass murderess. The first article was signed and can be explained by the writer’s lack of knowledge and courage, but the next article was a main editorial – and therefore formulated the papers’ view.So the tradition from Tingsten has been abandoned (the new writer Peter Wolodarski is an exception) and I am deeply ashamed of the paper that I have dedicated almost my entire professional life to.There is a sad Swedish and foremost social democratic tradition of insults against Israel. “

However, a month later Expressen also publishes such a main editorial about “Israeli arrogance”. But already on January 25 it seems that these statements didn’t concern the columnist Jan Guillou the slightest, as he later writes, as per usual, blatantly in his chronicle:

“Therefore Israel has started to fully depend on the tactic to stamp out all criticism against Israel’s occupation as rashes of anti-Semitism. And therefore it is completely logical that prime minister Ariel Sharon called and congratulated his not at all crazy ambassador after his bombastic display.”

It seemed that Guillou was a bit lazy though, since he, like an old record, stutters the same broken tune, which at a closer look seems to be a shorter version of his book Inshallah. , in the chapter Anti-Semitism as a weapon. Guillou, as usual, hints that Israel’s ambassador’s sincere disgust for terrorist glorification – and this opinion is supported by an overwhelming majority with the exception perhaps of some leftists within the Israel that the ambassador represents – is in fact a secret, well calculated political game. And as usual his piece is spiced up with usual tabloid selling exaggerations such as “The oppression of the occupied Palestinian people has lately become a form of a nightmare with proportions of 50 mile long apartheid wall as its culmination” and “the closest to fanatical brutality that Ariel Sharon’s government demonstrates”. Guillou then ends his chronicle with his own home made conclusion stating that:

“In our time and part of the world the gravest racist threats are of course those aimed against Muslims and Arabs.”

According to Guillou's own ethical scale, the conclusion could only be that it’s more grave or serious if Muslims and Arabs are threatened and/or harmed than anyone else. But in reality it so happens that the previous reports and testimonies that just had leaked out previously to the media, it’s only the Arabs and Muslims who as a group is in an overwhelming majority against the minority of Swedish Jews, and it’s the Arabs and Muslims who are reported to harass Jewish minors and elderly Holocaust survivors (and not the other way around), according to Swedish research reports and other reports from the EU (prevented from publication but leaked), and in some degree also from the Jews themselves. A fact, which Guillou either repressed, or less gracefully seemed to have “forgotten”.

Even the same day, January 25, the Swedish national television SVT had an early announcement in their TV guide that the program Agenda would be broadcasting an interview with 14 year old Nadav Meyer of Göteborg, testifying that so far he has been unprovocatively attacked and beaten at least five times in public places in Göteborg. His “crime” was wearing a necklace with the Star of David fully visible. And doing so in the tolerant society of Sweden.

“Harassed because of his star of David

Statistics from the Jewish communities show that threats and harassment increased during last year and that the attacks take on more serious forms of expressions. According to researchers it’s foremost among Islamic groups and individual Muslims with roots in the Middle East, where the Jew hate grows increasingly. Meet 13-year-old Nadav Meyer who gets beaten up because he wears the Star of David.”

The day after this witness statement in national television Helle Klein, the political editor of Aftonbladet, publishes a chronicle of her own. This time she manages to be either totally ignorant and completely unaware of the situation for Jews in Sweden today, or happily living in a state of denial of already stated facts. The TV show was aired just the evening before. She aims her attack at Leo Lagercrantz in Expressen and at Per Ahlmark in Dagens Nyheter, for what they wrote. But foremost she goes after the Israeli ambassador as she thinks his “perception of reality” is “warped” and she informs her readers of her conclusion:

”In several interviews he has claimed that the anti-Semitism has grown strong in Sweden and that “Jews are harassed by Muslims everywhere, in schools, in the streets, on the subway. It’s a big accusation aimed towards the entire Swedish people, including its Muslim population. Luckily there is nothing to substantiate that this would actually be true.”

A political editor-in-chief of one of the Nordic region’s largest daily that somehow has managed to miss all previous public statements and international reports? How strange! This resulted in the evening paper Expressen publishing an entire page where the now 14-year-old Nadav himself was able to respond, and ask questions directly to Klein.

“I am a Jew, 14 years old, born in Göteborg, and I’m scared every time I walk by myself in town, to school, to sports practice, to my friends.I am scared because am under constant threat. I have been threatened, attacked and thrown off trams because I wear my Star of David, showing that I am a Jew.Those who do these things are always (except once) young Muslim or Arab guys with roots in the Middle East. I don’t know if they were born here or there. I am never attacked by adults, and never by girls, only guys.They seem to think that because of the quarrel in the Middle East between the Jewish country and some Arab/Muslim countries, and especially the Palestinians, that it’s okay to attack a Jew on the other side of the world – me. To them I seem to represent everything they don’t like, Israel and Israelis. They have told me this, time after time. I usually just walk away, because I don’t want any trouble. But they push and fight, but I always walk away. One time after receiving two hits, I hit one guy back in the face. He bled severely and I ran away.But I don’t want to fight. They never ask me what I think about the politics in Israel. And in any case – I have the right to think whatever I like about it. But no one asks me. It’s always the same thing: “Too bad Hitler didn’t do the job properly”, “Jew bastards don’t have the right to breathe the same air as regular people”, “We will finish the job Hitler didn’t” and so on.But what if I did the same thing? What if I harassed Arabs or Muslims in the streets just because I don’t like what Osama Bin Laden did in the USA, or because of what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds? It’s crazy.I continue to wear my Star of David openly. I have always done so, ever since I was a small child.Christians often wear a cross around their necks. Sikhs have turbans. Hindu women have red dots on their foreheads and Muslim women wear headscarves. So how can this be a problem? I just think it’s nice that we’re different.

I would like that the papers stopped writing so much, and especially so negatively, about Israel. Israel isn’t the only place in the world with problems, but one would easily think so considering the amount written about that area, and not of other problem areas. Those who attack me can’t see the difference between a Jew and an Israeli. If the media continues to write in this negative manner about everything Israel does, and no negative stuff about what some Arab countries do, then it’s only natural that these guys don’t know any better and regard me as the enemy. How would/could they treat me differently then?For example I read on Monday, the day after the interview regarding the harassment I was subjected to, which was shown on “Agenda”, Channel 2, that a journalist, Helle Klein, wrote in Aftonbladet that “ Luckily there is nothing to substantiate it being… Jews harassed by Muslims everywhere, in schools, on the streets, in the subway.” But just the evening before I had told people about all this, precisely this. Again, when we visited Stockholm this autumn, I was attacked on the subway because of my Star of David. My father tried to talk to the guy, who was maybe 17-18 years old, and my dad reached out his hand and said that adults did not have to act that way. But the guy just looked at him and said ”are you insane, I won’t shake hands with some Jew bastard”. No one on the train said anything. We got off at the next stop.The police, who have been really kind when I have reported this, want me to hide my Star of David in order to avoid trouble. But what if the problem wasn’t the fact that I was Jewish, but black? There are stupid racists who hate black people. Would the police then tell me not to show my black skin in order to avoid trouble? If that was the case we wouldn’t see a single black person in the streets, and that’s just crazy.Everyone thinks Nazis are racists. In Sweden everyone dissociates from the Nazis, but are remarkably quiet when Muslims or Arab racists say and do exactly the same things towards Jews, as if they don’t want to be accused of being against Muslims. I am not against Muslims or any other minorities. My father grew up in a small Jewish minority in India together with Muslims and Hindus, without any problems. My grandmother was the only survivor of the family after Hitler did all those awful things to the European Jewry. She survived Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. In my family we know what it means to be a minority.

I have never heard of any Jews here in Sweden threatening people because they are Muslims or Arab. I think it’s because we Jews grow up feeling that it’s always hard to be a minority, and therefore we must show respect to others. I would like to talk to people instead of having to protect myself against them. In my family we call it respect.Nadav Meyer14 years old”

Klein however says in her next chronicle that Expressen is slandering her because she is a woman (!).

…“Day after day I myself am now being accused by the same papers editors and cultural editor to be “gravely hysterical” (a common accusation against women who speak their minds), of not understanding anything, of “denying” the hate that a 14 year old Jewish boy in Göteborg meets, and to “have closed my eyes” to the anti-Semitism and to “legitimate further anti-Semitism.”…

14-year-old Nadav Meyer doesn’t get any other, or better, answer than that. Klein was of course as usual not to blame, in her own happy little world, after years of continuous “Israel criticism” and directly supporting anti-Israel actions, or written about them herself in a supportive way, while constantly whining and moaning in continuous slandering chronicles aimed against the State of Israel and its actions of self-defense. Young Meyer continues to wear his Star of David also after the TV appearance and the openhearted letter, and was being continuously harassed and attacked during the year. And the highly paid Klein continued to write anti-Israeli chronicles on a monthly basis, obviously not too concerned.

The same day, a letter in the morning paper SvD had already been published regarding the genocide conference that Sweden organized and was hosting. In that letter further grave concerns emerged which apparently had passed the political editor-in-chief and her other columnists by, and had also missed the past autumn’s reports and TV shows in the Swedish media.

“Islamism breeds new Jew hate

Today the government’s Genocide Conference opens. Many were moved to tears by Göran Persson's words in 2001 about never forgetting the crimes of the Nazis. But his credibility stands and falls with how he now handles the propaganda once again being aimed at the Jews.What does Göran Persson have to say about the new Jew hate that grows amongst Islamists and other Muslim groups? The writer Hedi Fried asks this as well as the cultural editor Jackie Jakubowski.“Human values and democracy cannot be defended with silence. Human values and democracy cannot be defended with passivity.”Thus spoke Prime Minister Göran Persson in January 2001 at the Stockholm International Forum: Combating intolerance.A year earlier he had initiated the conference about the Holocaust and the project Living History. His opening speech was about the importance of making a stand, never to be silent about anti-Semitism, racism, and all kinds of xenophobia.Already from an early age many Arab children and youths learn hostility towards the Jewish people. Even in Swedish suburbs and on the Internet the anti-Semitism is increasing, the authors claim.

Many of the Holocaust survivors were moved to tears by the prime minister’s words: “From history’s devastated darkness, like an eternal call, we hear their cries; ‘never forget us!’ No, we will never forget!”And with reference to an article, where one of us (Hedi Fried) wrote that the tragedy in the Balkan four decades after the Holocaust shows us that mankind never learns, Göran Persson assured us in his finishing speech that we do learn from the past.That’s how it sounded then. Since then Göran Persson has hardly spoken a word about the anti-Jewish climate that has grown and spread and taken yet more violent expressions, both in Sweden and abroad.

During the last three years synagogues and schools have been set on fire and Jews have been attacked in the streets of Paris, Antwerp and Göteborg. Calls for violence have been incited and agitated for openly – and then implemented.In the spring of 2002, for example, when the Liberal Youth organized a peaceful demonstration at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm under the parole “Stop Anti-Semitism and stop Islamophobia” some of the demonstrators were assaulted. “Jew pigs” and “Death to the Jews!” echoed in Swedish and Arabic in the center of the capital of Sweden.

Göran Persson has never said a word about this in public. And when the Jewish community a couple of weeks later held a manifestation against anti-Semitism in the Raoul Wallenberg Square, any response to the invitation never came from the prime minister or any other government representative.

The perpetrators of these anti-Jewish attacks have not been by “the old anti-Semites” – “It’s no longer about any far right-wing anti-Semitism, but about Jew hate of Islamic origin”, the French Minister of Education Luc Ferry explains.The perpetrators are in most of cases young men with roots in the Middle East and North Africa, who live in the larger cities’ suburbs in Europe and are themselves victims of xenophobia.They represent a small minority of the Muslims in Europe, but they live in an environment where Jew hate has become both part of the religious preaching and the political debate about the Palestine conflict. Their inspirational sources can be found in the Arab world, where we see an even cruder form of anti-Semitic propaganda.

This ideology of hate also reaches our large rSwedish cities’ suburbs, where the failed integration politics contributes to the seeds of extremism being sown.Historian Mikael Tossavainen shows this in the report ”Hatred Denied”(Det Förnekade Hatet) from Lund (Swedish Committee Against anti-Semitism). His observations and conclusions are completely in line with the French department of internal affairs, in their own report “The new anti-Semitism” which was published in December.The French government spokespersons nowadays admit that one earlier has “underestimated the magnitude of the problem”.But more European leaders are now beginning to speak more openly about this development. At a meeting in Brussels in the middle of December the EU gave voice to its “deep concern for the increasing degree of anti-Semitic intolerance” and decided to hold a special conference in Berlin in February in order to address the question.

But in Sweden Göran Persson spoke about this development only after two Parliament members had asked him questions directly (13/11 2003).He explained that he is well aware of the situation that Annelie Enochson (Christian Democratic party) and Gabriel Romanus (Liberal party) described: That anti-Semitism grows in the Swedish suburbs, that teachers testify about hostility towards Jews among groups of Arab and Muslim pupils, that on the internet there are Swedish homepages published by Muslim organizations spreading crude anti-Semitic propaganda and encouraging harassment against Swedish Jews. “This is my perception of reality also, and it hurts me deeply.” said Göran Persson. But if the prime minister has known this all along, why has he been silent?

To criticize those who spread hate in the name of Islam or to condemn anti-Semitism in Muslim environments has nothing to do with Islamophobia. To forcefully condemn racist Islamism ought to be self evident to those who say that they have indeed learned from the previous totalitarian ideologies’ rampages.”….

Hedi Fried, psychologist and authorCame to Sweden in 1945 as a Holocaust survivor

Jackie JakubowskiCultural writer and editor-in-chief for the Jewish Chronicle

There was no response from any government spokesperson with regards to these questions this time either. And just a day later another journalist, at the same paper, came to the bright conclusion that there hardly exists any anti-Semitism at all in Sweden.

The beginning of the year the continues with the Parliament member Gustaf Fridolin giving lectures on his “experiences” regarding Israel, experiences from in total less than a week that he spent there, and a large part of that experience was from Israeli custody after a stone throwing incident. Now in this brand new era, Italian fascism is obsolete, German Nazism has been largely extinguished (or at least forbidden by law in Germany), and Russian Communism has died by its own hands, but a seed to another ISM had been sown – the “International Solidarity Movement”. A month later, almost on the day after that small incident in Israel, Fridolin shows another set of skills in a press statement.

This is an extract from the nominated “peace group” ISM’s principal declaration in Sweden:

…“ISM does not resist the armed struggle but supports the Palestinian right to armed resistance”…

Hence a “peace group” declaring principal support to (terrorist) violence, had just been nominated by two Swedish Members of Parliament for an internationally acknowledged and prestigious award. Who were these members of parliament that had found each other? Larsson from the Left party happily calls himself “communist” and “anti-fascist”. A year earlier on the memorial day of the German Kristallnacht pogroms against the European Jewry he was present at a rally in Malmö, kidnapping and desecrating that very memory with slandering accusations. A year prior to this he described the democracy of Israel in a Parliament debate as being “a racist apartheid state… lead by a brutal war criminal with blood on his hands from hundreds of murders… snipers target medics who do their work and bombs are being dropped on hospitals”. But already in 1994 Kalle Larsson had everything else but an infamous anti-fascist attitude, rather the opposite, when he was quoted in an interview conducted by the conservative Joakim Nilsson, which Larsson has become somewhat infamous for:

“When the revolution comes I promise to see to it that it’s me holding the rifle that will shoot you.”

When members of the Parliament as representatives for the Left and the green party nominate an organization that only just before the nominations has been involved in terrorist actions against civilians in other democracies, one is lead to believe that something must be seriously rotten in Swedish politics. On April 30, 2003 two ISM “activists” conducted a terrorist attack by targeting a jazz club and detonating a bomb and blowing themselves up together with their victims in the crowded club. The relatives of the murdered innocent victims at Mike’s Place by the beach promenade in Tel-Aviv are probably not being asked what they think, or if they even knew about the Swedish joint Parliament nomination, or if they are happy about this “peace prize nomination”. On March 8, film footage was released from a confiscated Hamas video showing these two “ISM peace activists” posing for the camera, dressed up both in the white shahid (holy martyr) dress, and in army camouflage gear, waving both the holy Koran and their AK-47 machine guns, standing in front of a Hamas flag.

Ashif Muhahmmad Hanif, 22, and Omar Khan Sharif, 27

At Mike’s Place in Tel-Aviv, 3 civilians were killed and over 50 injured by the hands of these “peace activists”. The owner of Mike’s Place, drenched in blood, told the Jerusalem Post reporters , that he was standing behind the counter when he heard the loud explosion, but he was surprisingly enough alive and OK. It was worse for one of the waitresses who had her arm blown off. The people responsible for this are the people the Parliament member of the Swedish Left party and Green party want to nominate for the Nobel “peace prize”, an organization that just has been involved in terror targeting civilians and an organization that has succeeded in terrorist atrocities resulting in mass murder.

An essay with the headline Housebroken Jew hate, is published on March 4 and was presented this way:

“The lack of knowledge about persecutions of Jews is large, especially within the Left. The anti-Semitism of the 1930’s never became subject to self-examination. Therefore the same images now return but now disguised as criticism of Israel.”

Follow the money. The Swedish organization SIDA, the social democratic government’s office for international aid, has censored and stopped the publication of a report. These news are reported in Sweden, which for a long period has been in a state of recession starting at the beginning of the millennium, with high unemployment rates. On a daily basis people have been able to read alarming news reports and reports from politicians suggesting cut backs and streamlining in public health care and other areas, which wasn’t exactly the promises made during the previous election. Politics as usual. But according to the reports the country is at this time on her knees, with unemployed in hundreds of thousands. During these hard times the King of Sweden went for a state visit to Brunei and, not being very well informed, put his foot in his mouth and made a few not so very clever remarks about the dictatorship where he was the honored guest. This immediately drew the attention from the anti-royalists as well as the left who squabbled about the king’s annual appanage of 50 millions which he doesn’t have to account for.

“This is how SIDA covered up the criticism against the PLO support.SIDA had ordered a research report to be made in the form of a scientific analysis of the Swedish aid to Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Administration. The conclusion of the analysis was that the aid should be stopped. But then SIDA classified the result – and continued to pump out tax millions.”

This report was written in 1997 after SIDA had given away at least 200, but more probably around 300 millions SEK a year, for seven years, at the total sum of somewhere around 1,4 – 2,1 billions. It actually seemed as if the Swedish King wasn’t as important to Sweden as the Palestinian Authority, and especially Yassir Arafat himself. Only a year earlier, the Egyptian dictator made the list in the Forbes Magazine, where he was ranked as being richer than the Queen of the Netherlands. And Arafat’s wife Suha was living happily in luxury in France – but at the expense of whom? Well, probably with the help of the Swedish taxpayers, many of them unemployed. And this includes the Swedish Jews, who had, probably against their will, involuntarily been part of funding a terrorist organization with the annihilation of the Jews as their goal, and plenty of Jewish blood on their hands already, in order to emphasize that specific goal of destruction.

The very thorough 103-page long report says: “The Involvement of Arafat, PA Senior Officials and Apparatuses in Terrorism against Israel, Corruption and Crime” was already out in the spring of 2002, and, without a shadow of a doubt, directly linked the “democratically elected” chairman Arafat, after investigation and the seizing of documents from his headquarters, to recent terrorist attacks, deliberately aimed at unarmed defenseless Israeli civilians, including women and children.

The director and person in charge of SIDA’s Asian region, Jan Bjerninger, had no answers to give as to why the report was classified. “I know nothing, I have no answers, I’ll get someone to investigate this.” A week earlier he had stated, regarding the SIDA aid of some 20 millions SEK of the taxpayers’ money straight to NSU, which had become the propaganda machine for the PLO, in answer to the question regarding independent researchers if NSU is now a propaganda central for PLO: “I haven’t heard about that before.”At which level in SIDA was this decision made? “At my level.”Why were the papers classified? “I don’t know.”Bjerninger’s “investigation” however, seemed only a week later to have led him to give an “explanation”:

“The reason given for the SIDA 1997 secrecy regarding Sune Persson’s report about corruption within the Palestinian Authority, was that the report risked disturbing the then ongoing peace process, writes Jan Bjerninger, section chief for SIDA Asian department, in response to Lisa Abramowicz’ article of March 3.”

The Wall Street Journal had also noticed there was something very wrong with the Swedish fundings. After this scandal a vivid debate commenced, primarily in the Swedish Parliament, trying to figure out who was responsible for the classification of the report, but no straight answers came from either SIDA or the Swedish Foreign Ministry. Until Tuesday October 19 when Ewa Björklund named Pierre Schori, the same Schori who two years earlier wrote a speech for the Holocaust denying prize winner for the Palme foundation. It’s revealed in the article that Schori, shortly after the classification, visited Arafat and promised him another 158 million SEK of the Swedish taxpayers’ money. Schori was able to do this as undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, since his career made him move on and hold the title of Swedish UN ambassador.

Let’s see what Schori answered regarding his concerns for Arafat and the aid already in 1997, in the Swedish Parliament “… asks if the Swedish aid goes to the Palestinian people? The answer is yes; I want to emphasize that Sweden in general have great demands regarding control and evaluation of the aid. SIDA therefore regularly follows up the aid efforts to the Palestinians. Results and effects on development are being investigated.” Information on other investigations made came from the organization eufunding.org later, when they released a 48-page report in 2004, where one could download the report and the introduction of the report reads:

“European aid has not reached its intended target – the Palestinian people. It has been diverted towards grafting, terrorism and incitement to hatred and violence.”.

That verdict is very close to what Sune Persson’s report had predicted already in 1997.

On March 15, the Christian paper Dagen (The Day) informs us that the priest and MP for the Liberal party, Cecilia Wikström, has filed a complaint to the chancellor of justice since the magazine Arbetaren (The Worker) had published an essay by a certain professor of philosophy, Torbjörn Tännsjö, who had came to the “intellectual” and bright conclusion that “Israelis have a collective guilt. And therefore terrorism [against Israelis] is morally justified”.

March 18 – Hamas and SwedenThis past week has been an eventful one for Hamas and Sweden. It began on March 18 when it was reported that the Swedish Radio had revealed that the terrorist organization (even by EU standards) Hamas had their official website situated on the Telia (formerly governmental) commercial networks. On this website a plethora of clear incitement to murdering Jews could be read, and so called Lebanese “students” were officially claimed to be in charge of the maintenance of the website. The Swedish Security Police (SÄPO), whose work includes combating terrorism, acknowledged that for a longer period of time (i.e. more than six months) had known about the existence of this website, but didn’t perceive it as something remarkable or in contradiction with current Swedish law. It was not too pleasant seeing this side of the police, whose job it is to look after and protect Swedish interests against foreign and anti-democratic forces, now showing obvious signs of having trouble spotting terrorists who openly incite to murder of Swedish citizens. Would the Swedish Security Police possibly have had any trouble spotting them if someone designed a webpage glorifying the neo-Nazi inspired police murders in Malexander, mocking its victims and urging for more cop killings? The Swedish Security Police representative was interviewed on the evening news at 22:00 on Channel 4 the same day, where the deputy chief Margareta Linderoth, obviously cornered after being hunted down by reporters during the day, said:

“Everyone has the right to belong to a terrorist organization… as long as they don’t commit any criminal act.”

This said by the deputy chief of police on Swedish prime time television, and what signals this may have sent out one is left to wonder about for sure. However, the Jewish community of Göteborg filed a complaint against the Security Police, that the police had known about and not acted on the terrorist propaganda, which was based in Sweden.

In order to get an adequate perspective on this incident one could then make a hypothetical comparison and try to understand, or imagine, how an American news audience would receive the same message during similar circumstances. For example, let’s pretend that the Internet provider America On Line contains the official website of Al-Qaeda in their networks and that CNN blows the whistle about it. The FBI deputy chief goes on the news and says, “Everyone has the right to belong to a terrorist organization…” The mere thought is so absurd and divorced from reality, that there are hardly words enough to describe it. But in Sweden it seemed to be perceived as something completely normal and natural and was casually observed by the average Swede as well as the rest of the country with a mere yawn of disinterest – and then seemingly accepted by a majority of the news consumers, soon to be forgotten.

Later the same week, on Saturday March 20, 2004, thousands of demonstrators got together in order to express their discontent with the coalition countries’ liberation of Iraq from its dictator Saddam Hussein, according to DN :

“Gustaf Fridolin, on the organizing committee for the Network Against War and Parliament member, satisfied with the attendance” and that the “Network Against War is a loosely contained organization that organizes demonstrations and seminars, Gustaf Fridolin was the last speaker before the march went on its way, heading towards the American embassy in order to end the manifestation there.”

The manifestation ended outside the American Embassy with the burning of a US flag, something not uncommon in the Middle East, and lo and behold, in the photograph supplied by DN, visible in the background is the proposed Palestinian flag flying in the wind, not being torched. Parliament member Gustaf Fridolin’s “loosely contained” “Network Against War” members includes the following organizations:

This list of organizations includes everything ranging from artists, students, teachers, political parties, religious parties as well as other various associations. However, not one single Jewish organization can bee seen, not even Dror Feiler’s (or failure as some Jews now refer to him) organization JIPF – but then again, the Swedish Jews might not be welcome to partake in the “demonstrations” who rally and frighten people on their Saturday walk? Is it perhaps equally morally justified to burn a Palestinian flag instead, but outside some Swedish refugee camp this time? These groups have once more proved what they aim for with their behavior, and shown what they want from the future.

On Sunday, the following day, it was time again. This time approximately 500 individuals intended to “demonstrate” in the streets of Stockholm, under the protection of the evening darkness as well as their facemasks. The mob that refers to themselves as “Global Intifada” created mayhem in the streets during the riots while trying to attack Jews on the Nalen festival yet again as well as Israeli institutions. This lead to violent clashes between the so-called “demonstrators” and the anti-riot police forces.

A person who obviously “demonstrates” against Israel for defending its existence as shown in the media, when demonstrators ran amok and smashed the windows of the Jewish state’s tourist bureau.

The tabloid Aftonbladet (AB) later made room for a longer column for one of the “demonstrator’s” defensive “explanation” and about the evil police using excess violence.

…“’A friend and I decided to be medics and we wore homemade armbands with red crosses to show who we were…” and later “I started to shout that I was a medic…’Nabila Abdul Fattah, 22Rap artist and student involved in the Palestinian cause

It sounds more like disguise and deception, if she at the moment wasn’t trained professionally as a medic, and would such medics really be needed at a peaceful demonstration? They obviously knew there were going to be violence, hence the attempt to appoint themselves “medics”. The protestors had brought rocks, fireworks, acid and petrol, which they threw at the anti-riot police forces trying to defend the Jews at the private Israeli dinner gathering.

AB journalists also reported that that the Swedish ambassador to Germany was “upset”, by the picture of him quibbling with the anti-riot police drenched in some kind of liquid, because he wasn’t allowed to pass the police anti-riot fence. What a coincidence that he just happened to be in the neighborhood at the time, and him being the same ambassador, Carl Tham, who only a year earlier co-signed the boycott calls against Israel, together with archbishop KG Hammar.No one really seemed to be very interested in what the intended targets – the Jews at the dinner gathering – thought.

Yassir Arafat proclaimed a three-day long period of national mourning in honor of the eliminated terrorist leader Sheik Yassin. What kind of politician or statesman mourns a liquidated terrorist? A terrorist the PA was supposed to combat, not support and pay respect to.SVT aired yet another debate program that due to this news report broadcasts a special debate program called “Is it possible to stop the spiral of violence?” What did the invited Monzer el Sabini, introduced as “a regular Swedish-Palestinian”, think and have to say about the Arab Hamas leadership? Well, he said among other things: “Yassin was a liberal moderate Muslim who united different groups”.

A Swedish protest storm emerged and erupted in Sweden against Israel, and the chairman of the Young Left, Ali Esbati, was reportedly against the neutralization of the terrorist leader.

“Extrajudicial executions of this kind, which Israel openly and proudly have performed, are against all imaginable conventions.”

The Green party’s MP Yvonne Ruwaida didn’t like the liquidation of the terrorist either:

“Sweden has to increase the demands on Israel to stop the state terrorism, writes the Green party’s member of Parliament Yvonne Ruwaida today in a interpellation to foreign minister Laila Freivalds.”

The new SSU chairman Shekarabi didn’t like the liquidation of the instigator of Jew murder either:

“But that doesn’t change the fact that the murder was in violation of international law, extrajudicial execution is of course forbidden. That it was conducted in such a way, this time with a helicopter attack which resulted in collateral damage is yet another insult.”

Foreign minister Freivalds together with her colleagues in the EU foreign ministry didn’t like the elimination of the inciter of mass murder towards civilian Jews:

“Foreign minister Laila Freivalds condemns the murder on Hamas’ spiritual leader, Ahmad Yassin. ‘We cannot accept extrajudicial executions, terrorists shall undergo trial and be tried by legal means, said Freivalds before the Foreign Ministry’s meeting in Brussels. She warns that the violence might escalate further and that the Palestinian Authority is made even weaker, and that the EU foreign ministers worked during Monday on a joint statement that condemns extrajudicial executions, added Freivalds.”

What kind of country, no, what kind of continent is this?The Nazi Richard Heydrich in the SS, planned the Jew exterminations in Europe 62 years ago, in 1942. At a seized (from a Jewish family that had fled) suburban villa in the city of Wannsee, the famous meeting was held that laid out the drafts for the Final Solution – Endlosnung of “the Jewish question”, that later came to be known to the world as the Holocaust. Czech resistance fighters later eliminated Heydrich as he was traveling in his car on his way to a meeting. Was that also possibly to be regarded as an “extrajudicial execution” and going against international law? Because I haven’t seen any official Swedes or Europeans complaining about this “murder”, except the Nazis at the time, who responded with destroying the village of Lidice (where rumors had it that the resistance fighters originated from) on direct orders from Adolf Hitler, and killing all living creatures down to the last pet. Hamas’ goal isn’t so different; their official charter speaks of a very similar goal for Jews globally, and certainly the only Jewish nation on earth. The goal is total annihilation.But now European leaders, who usually are real quiet when it comes to condemning the recurring Arab atrocities against Israelis, get together and condemn Israel. And in Sweden the usual self-proclaimed know-it-all experts gather in the media, and once more spread themselves all over the morning TV sofas. “Israel should have done this”, and “Israel should have done that”, they’re preaching. Their complete lack of understanding, their incapability of putting themselves in Israel’s position, is speaking for itself. Some of them even wonder why Israel didn’t send in troops on foot instead in order to arrest the terrorist leader. The same people that unilaterally condemned Israel for sending in troops in Jenin on foot. They put Israel in an impossible catch 22 situation.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry had in their possession plenty of videotapes of when this terrorist, Ahmad Yassin, were preaching of slaughtering of Jews. CNN ran a poll among the viewers. Of those who voted, an overwhelming majority; a wholesome 76% with a total over 50 000 voters on the Yes answer agreed that Israel hade made the right decision. The question was “was Israel justified?”

To quickly sum up just seven days in Sweden in March 2004: Hamas incitement homepage in Swedish controlled networks that the security police knew about.Saturday: Flags on fire outside the US Embassy. Sunday: Jews being attacked and windows smashed. Monday: Hamas terrorist leader’s elimination condemned by government parties and their subsidiaries.

On March 22 another 50-page report regarding the European anti-Semitism is published in which, once again, a whole chapter is dedicated to Sweden. In the introduction to this report one can read on the Human Rights First webpage :

…“We show that attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions in Europe have been perpetrated both by extremist right-wing organizations and by members of immigrant Muslim communities who invoke the Middle East conflict in generalized attacks on Jews – treating the victims as we call it "enemies by proxy" for the State of Israel. “….

It’s further stated in the press release:

…“Yet, overall, despite some increased attention by European institutions and some governments, the report found that high levels of anti-Jewish threats and violence continue across Europe, and that the pattern of attacks and violence remains unchanged.”…

April 3A small, but upcoming nationalistic party, the Sweden Democrats, is portrayed, mostly by various leftist youth parties and other organizations, as a right-wing extremist party with historical ties to Nazism. However, in an issued press statement they write:

“Björn Söder threatened

Sweden: On Tuesday 30 March Björn Söder, the deputy chairman of the Sweden Democrats, was the recipient of a threat in the form of an e-mail. The threat has been filed as a police complaint and is regarded by the party as a death threat.

It was on Tuesday that Björn Söder received the e-mail from an unknown sender. The letter contained text that can be regarded as a death threat. The reason for the letter is Björn Söder’s statements in support of the state of Israel. Contents of the letter suggest that someone with Nazi sympathies is behind it. Björn Söder regards the threat seriously but emphasizes that his opinions won’t be affected.

- I think that Israel is the only democracy in the region. Israel is continuously the target of attacks that lack comparison, and has, just like any other sovereign state, the right to defend itself against the attacks it’s been exposed to…”.

Interestingly enough, it seems that this right-wing “extremist” whose party sometimes has even been called a “Nazi” party, as a minority among the established Swedish political parties, is speaking for Israel’s right to self defense, principles that guarantee its right to exist – as a Jewish democracy. Further it seems that the accusations of Nazi connections have lead this party to drag up and counter point some very interesting, but not very flattering, ugly history of the Social Democratic party during the Second World War. This is published online in the 15-page publication “The Social Democracy’s True Nature – the party behind the democratic front” where one can read about the social democrats’ co-operation with the German and Swedish Nazis during and after the war.

On April 5 the chairman of the Parliament’s justice committee sounds the alarm:“Sweden is becoming a base for terrorists”. This can hardly come as a surprise to some of the Swedish Jews, where many of them have seen it coming for a long time, even years. It might start with the Jews, but it doesn’t stop there, it seldom does.

“The Swedish Government regards the task to counteract and combat anti-Semitism and related intolerance as one of its most important duties. “

And further she takes on personal responsibility in order to emphasize just that:

“Because governments are responsible all the way and in every way.The work of combating and preventing anti-Semitism must be implemented on all levels of society.”

But regardless of the nice words, no Arab or Muslim seems to have been prosecuted or convicted so far in Sweden. And finally she ends her speech by quoting the Jewish Israeli professor Yehuda Bauer:

“…and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.”

Sahlin also proudly tells the audience that Sweden conducts statistics on anti-Semitic crimes, and that the government has initiated the project “Living History” in order to inform the Swedish youth about the Nazi crimes during the Second World War. The chairman of the board of that project just so happened to be the former deputy prime minister/foreign minister Lena Hjelm-Wallén, the one who only a year before talked of “personal boycott” against the Jewish nation Israel. And at the Parliament debate regarding the increasing anti-Semitism in Sweden already in 2001, she somehow managed to add “in the same manner that we guard the right to criticize Israel’s occupation of Palestinian areas and assaults on the Palestinian people.” In a speech three years prior to this she had “demanded” that Israel “should, no must” give up the Golan Heights and the West Bank, military strategical key areas, important to Israel’s very future survival, overtaken legally in defensive war after previous Arab aggression, which also cut off its main capital Jerusalem’s east section. It’s also known, after vivid public debates, that politicians take board missions in order to increase their income. Her successor, the most recent woman foreign minister Laila Freivalds, spoke at the Jerusalem Holocaust remembrance museum, Yad Vashem. It was much anticipated, and a former spokesperson for the Swedish Jews greeted her with open arms and wrote in the Israeli paper the Jerusalem Post:

“The good news is that Sweden's foreign minister Laila Freivalds has come to Israel to speak at a Yad Vashem ceremony and meet Israeli leaders.The bad news is that back in Sweden the situation of the Jewish community is becoming increasingly difficult.”

Thus it is with utmost concern that I as a former resident of Sweden have witnessed a flood of anti-Semitic incidents during the past several years.But I don't speak only for myself. What I am writing here are also the views of Salomo Berlinger, Willy Salomon and Torsten Press – all of us former chairmen of the Jewish community of Stockholm, now residing in Israel.

Swedish Jews expect the government to take concrete and determined measures to stop the flood of anti-Semitism in Sweden and to make sure that every Jewish resident in Sweden who so wishes can practice his religion and traditions without fear of verbal or physical violence.Freivalds' visit is welcome. Positive actions would be even more welcome.

Freivalds obviously chose to ignore these grave concerns, and took another route instead, the usual language of foreign ministers, in the official speech in memory of the Nazi victims at the Holocaust remembrance museum Yad Vashem, during the ongoing terror war:

“Let me in this connection state very clearly that it is legitimate to criticize Israeli government policies, just as it is to criticize the policy of any government. Such criticism can never in itself be equal to anti-Semitism, and we firmly reject any attempts to do so.”

And with this statement she managed more or less to offend the entire Israeli society and its citizens and the victims of terror, when the Israel state tries to protect the same citizens from the ongoing Muslim Arab terror campaign.

On May 1 Lars Ohly of the Left party holds a speech: “Ariel Sharon is a murderer and a war criminal. He was personally responsible for the massacres in Sabra and Shatila. He is personally responsible for the terror against the Palestinians”.The person responsible for the terror against the Arabs has been Arafat and his thugs, just like he was in Lebanon when starting the civil war there 1974 and the ethnic cleansing of the Christian Maronite Arabs, destroying their homes as a way of saying thanks for the hospitality. The Left party at this point, seemed to have given up regarding to the Jenin hoax, but instead they resorted to the spreading of the well-known lies about the terrorist camps in Lebanon. If village massacres are of interest, the Left party might want to ask themselves what happened prior to that, when the PLO gangsters entered the village of Damour in 1976 which resulted in a shoot out and a bombed church, gang rapes, and some 500 dead and mutilated villagers, after some 25 000 inhabitants had to flee for their lives from the carnage. At the PLO hideout in Sabra and Shatila one can read the witness testimony from the Lebanese Robert Maroun Hatem’s own book, blacklisted in Lebanon, “From Israel to Damascus“ where in chapter 8 one can read the following:

“Sharon had given strict orders to Hobeika to guard against any desperate move, should his men run amok. They were to behave like a real, dignified, regular army and not like «chocolate soldiers« and to co-ordinate their moves with the Israeli command. Their mission was to exert pressure on the Palestinians to drive them all out of the camp, and to pick out the PLO agents left behind after the evacuation of the Palestinians in August 1982. They rallied at the Cite Sportive and were taken prisoners. After inspection the civilians would be sent back to their homes. However, Hobeika gave his own instructions to his men: Total extermination ... camps wiped out.”

He goes even further and states:

“I was Hobeika’s field man and always present on the premises with my chief wherever he went. I can state under oath, that General Sharon would never have lit up the area the way he did, had he planned a slaughter. He would not have cleaned up the Cite Sportive to house all the Palestinians pending their return to their homes after verification. He would not have placed his tanks and armored cars all around the camps to capture the remaining armed Palestinian agents. One thing was certain; the Syrians had men within the ranks of the Lebanese Forces’ leaders. Reflecting back on the events of my life, all the facts leads me to believe that Hobeika was the man who in 1982 provoked the Sabra and Shatila massacres. I can only give my own testimony as an eyewitness to the events that brought about the massacres.”

And while bringing up the subject of Syria and particularly the village massacres, this happened the same year, in 1982, when the Syrian dictator Hafiz Assad’s army leveled the Syrian city of Hama with the ground, with estimations in the range of 30 000 to 40 000 dead, a presumed and overwhelming majority of those being civilians. That’s 30 to 40 times more victims, than in the case of Sabra and Shatila. The PLO habit of attacking holy sites such as churches could also be seen in 2002 when Muslim Arabs occupied the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem for a month, having taken 200 innocent civilians as hostages. And a demographic shift has occurred as well: “Bethlehem used to be 80% Christian; today it’s down to 20% and constantly dwindling” where the fleeing former residents have sometimes testified about the mafia style Arafat’s Islamism has brought in. There is a pattern here. And this pattern is of war crimes to great extent – but one never hears any politicians from the Swedish Left even bothering to show the smallest concern or condemnation in these cases, nor any calls for international tribunals. The most visible and common nominator in these cases would be that there weren’t any Jews around to try and pin the blame on.

May 14 – DN informs its readers that the Vatican warns Catholic women against Muslim men in a 80-page long official report, and not to lend church room to non-Christians.

May 28 – The Young Left has a new chairman after the previous one, Ali Esbati, seemed to somehow have been involved in a sex scandal where a list of names circulated. This affair was closed to the public and they were obviously not to know what really happened. The new chairman, Tove Fraurud, makes herself heard by accusing one from the Conservative party of “racism”. The only reason being that he is also the chairman of the Israeli-Swedish friendship association, and the irony is that she thereby takes on the racist way of collective guilt by association and generalizations while mocking the entire Conservative party.

“We have a slogan that says ‘no racists in Brussels’ It was aimed at the Sweden Democrats and the National Democrats but should probably also be applied with regards to the Conservative party.”

July 3 – While the Vatican, two weeks earlier, issued an official warning about some Muslims’ views on women, the Swedish boycotting archbishop presents another agenda in DN . The headline reads: “Archbishop KG Hammar takes on the battle for the right to wear religious symbols within the work environment.” It went on:

“Islam needs to get larger room in society. Religious connection is an asset even in the work life. Questions about discrimination of Muslims and the right to wear religious symbols must be addressed. The majority of the Swedish people cannot continue to oppress different religious minorities. Muslim women wearing head scarves have been feeling especially targeted, writes the Swedish archbishop KG Hammar in the DN Debate section in a urgent call, together with Moistafa Kharraki, chairman of the Swedish Muslim Council and Sture Nordh, chairman of TCO [union]”…

While this is a heartily felt and understandable cause, strangely enough it seems that only Muslims have the attention for these universal rights in this urgent call, while the Jews are hiding their stars of David, because of the harassments they are subjected to by young Muslims and Arabs within the Swedish society on a daily basis. But of course that’s not the whole story of what the archbishop, head of the Swedish Church, really has been up to. Only a couple of weeks earlier the archbishop, again, instigated yet another campaign of boycott against Israel. This time the boycott had its own name – HOPP (which means hope) and included a number of church affiliations and business partners: “For a just peace in the Middle East – End the occupation of Palestine…” The Swedish Jewish chairman and spokesperson Lisa Abramowicz, chairman of the Swedish Israel Information center, instantly renamed the campaign Hope(less?) with a number of conclusive questions and unanswered appeals.

…“3) The Swedish church does not propagate boycott towards USA because of the war and occupation of Iraq, towards China for the occupation of Tibet, Syria for the occupation of Lebanon, against Russia for the blood soaked conflict in Chechnya or India because of the conflict in Kashmir. Where is the logic? Where is the justice? In other regards, is trade boycott really the best way to “build bridges, not walls”, as HOPP so beautifully writes?

Dearest Archbishop KG Hammar! Call off the campaign against Israel! It is unjust and wrong. Do you wish to help the Palestinians, then buy goods marked ‘Made in Palestine’! Have a real dialogue and start building mutual trust by creating projects with both parties if you want to break the deadlock. Please make demands, but make them to both parties!”

The campaign also lead to the straw that finally broke the back of the patience of the Swedish Jewish Central Council who felt forced to mark their discontent with this one-sided smear campaign. As a response to the church’s “bridge building”, they cut the official ties to the Swedish Church, at the ongoing conference “Tools for Peace” aimed at working towards peaceful solutions.

May 17 – The State Radio informs the Swedish people about the Jewish soccer team filing complaints of harassment.

“A boys soccer team from the Jewish sports association IK Makkabi has been harassed by players from Iftin KoIF during a game in Stockholm last weekend. The Iftin players among other things supposedly yelled “Death to the Jews”…. According to the complaint IK Makkabi sent to the Stockholm Football Association, the players then kept screaming during the game “Death to the Jews”, “Crush Zionism” and “We will fight you after the game”.The referee had never seen anything like this ever before.Ekot spoke to the referee of the game, and he confirms the issues of the complaint. He does not want to make any comments on tape, but says that he has never heard anything like it.When the game was over the harassments went on but now in the form of physical violence, tells Andreas Körösi.- In connection with the traditional way of thanking for the game their team captain stroke a fist blow against one of our players, and then two, tree others also attacked”…

SvD felt compelled to testify with an editorial.

“All soccer games are framed by a certain ritual with emphasis on good sportsmanship. In the ritual it also includes that the team captains thanks for a good game. The team captain in the Spånga team Iftin KOIF also did this after a game for 15 year olds in the S:t Eriks Coup.The words went like this:“We thank the Jews and their referee.”After this several of his teammates threw themselves at the players in the Jewish sports association IK Makkabi's team (DN 17/6).

Is this really Sweden? A country where people of Jewish descendance need to hide their identity in order to evade persecutions? It’s a sign of the time. A remarkably worrisome one. The association members of Iftin KoIF are mainly Muslims of Somali origin. Next to Nazis and the communistic anti-Semitism that exists, as Mikael Tossavainen points out in his publication Hatred Denied (the Swedish Committee Against anti-Semitism, 2003) there is an increasing variety with Muslim signs. This is, in turn, a reflection of that very anti-Semitism which for decades has been an official ideology in the Middle East, and which stands on the extremist Muslims’ agenda. It’s sad that Muslim leaders in Sweden do not firmly condemn such acts, and that they don’t seem to be against it all that much.

Anti-Semitism is an international phenomenon, but conclusively, also in Swedish, the Jew hate is found on homepages and chat rooms, but it also expresses itself through violence; attacks, vandalizing, threats, harassments. Like the elderly storeowner in Malmö who has been subjected to smashed store windows, swastika graffiti, chants like “fucking Jew” and finally also fist blows (Sydsvenska Dagbladet 17/6).

Typical enough, attacks from different groups coincide with local demonstrations against Israel. It is a continuous pretext that individuals in Sweden are being held responsible for the State of Israel’s existence or its politics. In connection with the soccer game in the S:t Eriks Coup the chanting went “death to the Jews”, “[Long] Live Palestine” and “destroy Zionism”.

Another example is about a young substitute teacher, who was subjected to insults and threats because of her being Jewish. Included in that incident is a connection between the Jew hate and Israel. The school didn’t want to touch the matter; “there was one teacher who spoke up, but others meant that I needed to understand the reason for the hatred with regards to what is going on in the Middle East. (Sydsvenska Dagbladet 24/6).”

This “understanding” illustrates that the anti-Semitism can thrive in the one-sided criticism of Israel, which the politically correct establishment has been working on for years; the same establishment that now perceives the spreading of democracy in the Middle East as evil. But the Jew hate can never be excused.”

Who is in charge in Sweden regarding these issues? The Social Democratic minister Mona Sahlin held the title minister of integration and minister of sports at this time. The same Sahlin who only months earlier testified “…and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander”. She now seems to lack the will to comment on this incident, since nothing has been heard from her at all on this issue. The same day the report about the soccer game was published in Sweden, ISM reported from the West Bank, i.e. Judea and Samaria:

…“During the demonstrations against the building of the wall at Iskaka on the West Bank, the ISM activist Andreas Malm was arrested”...

Andreas Malm is well known to some of the Swedish audience, foremost after he wrote his (by some) praised book “A Bulldozer Against a People” (released by Agora that happens to be one of the sub-affiliations of the Arena Group which was behind the first boycott campaign in 2002) and is the local branch starter of the Swedish ISM office. He was also rewarded the 2003 prize by the Björn Afzelius foundation, because of his book and “commitment” described as “the first from the outside who managed to get inside the refugee camp in Jenin after the massacre there, the book builds on these experiences…”This is exactly the same ISM organization that earlier has been connected with events where foreigners from other European countries have protected armed terrorists and even killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The same ISM that has public support from Swedish political parties, in coalition position with the ruling government. Like many others, Andreas Malm seems to be living like a parasite, sponging off on a conflict that he himself has no real visible connection to whatsoever, probably to further a career of his own, with the visible results in the form of the continuing spreading of biased propaganda and outright fabrications along with the usual accusations against the Israeli people. If ISM really was a solidarity movement, dedicated to working against the “wrongs of the world”, then how come there is not one single ISM activist in Darfour, Sudan, where a real genocide has taken place against Muslims during 2004?

So what did Andreas Malm do this time in order to create headlines for himself? He went to a foreign country again, Israel, the only democracy in the entire Middle East that is at a continuous war against terrorism. Terrorists, I might remindingly add, who have the outspoken intentions of the annihilation of that very state. It might be a coincidence that it just happens to be the only Jewish state in the entire world. The praised ISM activist was found where attacks occurred, and if the photos don’t lie, while Andreas Malm are instigating violence against Israeli security forces, reported by Professor Steven Plaut in Front Page Magazine.

In Israel the reality of the new millennium has been that 18-year-old (or young) men in the army are facing rioting crowds running amok, terrorists who put minors at the front as stone throwers, and thus protecting the heavily armed terrorists and snipers at the back, while under a rain of stones, these young soldiers are taking live fire and facing life threatening situations. If the IDF should return the fire, and some of the young stone throwers get wounded or even killed in the clashes, the condemnations against Israel know no limits.

But let’s turn all that around. What would Swedish politicians and Swedish police think if foreign citizens came to Sweden with the intention to instigate and start public riots and violence against the upholders of the law? There is already an answer to that, since it has already happened during the Gothenburg riots in 2001. Swedish police opened fire with live ammunition (not rubber bullets), ammunition designed to kill, against unarmed youths (i.e. they had no AK47 machineguns, but some were armed with rocks, clubs and sticks) to disperse the crowds, and the politicians handed out roses afterwards to congratulate the police force for a well performed service. It was more luck than anything else that no innocent bystander got hit. And in Israel, the country that some Swedish politicians and journalist love to bash and slander, a situation like this, where the demonstrators haven’t got handguns or bombs, this is by comparison a walk in the park.

June 28 – News that the incitement and harassment case is dropped, the investigation is shut down and the Jew hater Ahmed Rami is freed from any indictment since the prosecutor was not able to link him to the web site. The prosecutor had him under investigation since the website had published a list of some four thousand names, where one could read: “Does Israel have a political mafia network in Sweden which undemocratically rules the free word in the country?” The prosecutor stated in her decision that “Ahmed Rami is the ideologist behind the text but denies all involvement that his text is spread in this way. Which part, if any, he himself has had in the construction of the homepage has not been possible to show, nor if any other person involved.” In DN Rami previously stated on December 17 “I have not published this information, and it’s not my homepage”.

Swedish memorial foundations hands out more prizes , this time it’s the first one from the murdered former foreign minister Anna Lindh’s newly set up memorial fund:

“Amira Hass winner of the first Anna Lindh award

Anna Lindh’s memorial foundation has allotted the Israeli Journalist Amira Hass the first Anna Lindh award. The motivation: In her uncompromising reports from the West Bank and Gaza, the Ha’aretz journalist Amira Hass contributes by increasing the understanding for the situation of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. By informing the Israeli public about daily life in Palestine she contributes by creating the conditions for a meaningful dialogue.”The grant will be handed out yearly to a person, organization or a project that works in the spirit of Anna Lindh. The grant is this year 250 000 SEK. “

So Amira Hass is praised and rewarded by a:

…”foundation has no affiliation to any political party. The members of the board, who work on a voluntary basis, represent different spheres of society – politics, the private sector, the unions, the Church and the cultural sphere.”…

So what about the foundation members, who are they? The one representing the Church is KG Hammar, the Swedish archbishop, head of the Swedish Church who is the instigator of several boycott campaigns against Israel alone. So who is the lucky prizewinner this time? A simple online Internet search on her name, and the word “bias” turns up a page from the AAD (Arabs Against Discrimination) covering this piece of news, with something that seems to be ordinary Israeli readers’ opinions, such as:

“Any regular person who hates Israel can win a prize in exchange for a few articles that incite against Israel”— Itzik.

“It’s not because she’s very smart. Anyone who hates Israel gets money from Europe — we shouldn’t let her into Israel.”

“A prize for journalistic trash”— A.

“Sweden is the most anti-Semitic nation in Europe after France — Amira: move to Sweden!”

“Go live with the Swedes. That’s your place, not here, Israel-hater.”

Any truth to these harsh words? A couple of months earlier, before the Swedish award ceremony, the organization Take-A-Pen gave Hass a virtual award also:

”May 30, 2004

HA'ARETZ is the liar of the month for May 2004 at Take-A-Pen, for its 'achievements' in Amira Hass’ article "One step ahead of the bulldozer". The title 'Liar of the month, published on our site www.take-a-pen.org, is being translated into 15 languages. This is the first time the title goes to an Israeli newspaper…”

Is this a well know common view amongst Israelis? Professor Steven Plaut was not shy with his judgment concerning Hass and the paper she works for, a year earlier:

…“The journalists of Ha’aretz are best represented by Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, people who dream of their country being dismembered and replaced by a Palestinian state from the sea to the river. Ha’aretz is as pluralistic as Pravda was when Stalin was alive. Professor Arnon Sofer has suggested that it change its name to al-Ard (Arabic for “the land”, “Ha’aretz” in Hebrew). For every 150 or so pieces by far-leftist anti-Zionists, it runs one symbolic balancing piece from the right, usually by Moshe Arens.”…

Let’s see what the media watch organizations have on the journalist Hass. The US based executive director at CAMERA had this to say about this specific prizewinner and her paper, years before the Swedish prize:

“Although Ha’aretz bills itself as “an independent newspaper with a broadly liberal outlook,” many of the opinion writers and some reporters espouse views of the extreme far left, and factual accuracy is often sacrificed to their political predilections. Reporter Amira Hass, for example, has just been ordered by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court to pay $60,000 in damages to the Jewish community of Hebron for her false and incendiary report that Jewish residents there had abused the corpse of a dead Arab shot by Israeli border police in a violent incident. The allegations were disproved by multiple televised accounts of the event.

The same reporter’s stories, replete with distorted and inaccurate charges that Israel is a “apartheid” state, steals Palestinian water, callously targets Palestinians over the age of 12 with sniper-fire, and generally subjugates Arabs out of sheer viciousness, are posted on countless anti-Israel websites.”

It seems the Swedish prize winner, Amira Hass, is someone well known and who has been convicted after been proved serving slanderous lies a couple years earlier – but this has been omitted to the ignorant Swedish audience. Maybe the prize money can cover some of her legal expenses and pay the fines for her previously published lies and outrageous slander. It is now quite obvious why she was elected by the Swedish boycotting head of church and the board members.

On a side note: In my own personal humble opinion a suggestion for a far better prize candidate would be the former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat, an Arab speaking the truth about his former life in the PLO. He has published a book “Israel and the world mock trial “ (online), and he is an honest man, giving lectures and teaching all over US campuses on the islamofascist terrorism threatening world peace. Or why not to the Lebanese victim of Arafat’s Jihad soldiers who destroyed her homeland, the Arab Maronite Brigitte Gabriel , founder of the American Congress for Truth.

The European based media watch organization Honest Reporting also had Hass up the same year for the same thing, then they put together a short list of some recent media ongoing events regarding Sweden after a derogatory “satire” cartoon of a Chassidic Jew emerged in the newspaper DN. The Sweden based journalist Robert Skole sums it up:

“Some publications do try to be honest – like Svenska Dagbladet, a morning daily, and magazines like the Jewish Chronicle. But with a Jewish community of about 15,000, compared with the 300 000-400 000 Muslims in Sweden (with a total population of 9 million), the voices of fairness towards Israel are, Skole says, 'whispers against a hurricane.'”

But why blame this particular cartoonist, he must have believed it was okay since only three years earlier the Swedish government’s cultural department rewarded another artist, Lars Hillersberg (infamous for his anti-Semitic “satire” and the one who illustrated the cover for the book by Radio Islam/Ahmed Rami), and secured a lifetime income guarantee, a decision which a large portion of the cultural editors and self-proclaimed experts defended fiercely.

When ordinary Swedish Jews, as private persons, try to express and voice their concern in the Swedish media by sending in protests or smaller factual corrective editorials, they often, very often, get letters of rejection. I have one myself from DN, which I received after the public urgent call “Isolate the apartheid state of Israel” by “200 signatories” bragging about “the article hasn’t been counter pointed, probably due to its factual solid ground”. The whole tale was riddled with the usual historic distortions and one-sided regular Israel bashing and usual condemnations. My counter pointing with elementary known facts was met with the editor’s usual rejection letter that so many Swedish Jews receive after being publicly challenged, stating that “due to lack of space there is no room…”. However it always seems to be some room available if it happens to be some of the few Jews that criticize Israel who want a word in. Dror Feiler and the ones from his little organization JIPF as leading example is proof of just that. Now that papers have to select which articles they choose it’s fully understandable. But that problem can be worked around as some stories starts to be circulated in English-speaking media outside Sweden regarding the Swedish situation for the minority of its Jews.

July 8 – Finally Sweden, after years of complaining and arguing during huge public debates, with support ranging from Gustaf Fridolin, as member of the board of the Guantanamo Group, to Thomas Hammarberg and Tamas Gellert from the Olof Palme Center, bring home its citizen Mehdi Ghezali. The particular group responsible for this is lead by a journalist, Gösta Hultén, who published on his webpage” A Swede in a concentration camp – without charges or verdict” (December 2002). The Swedish government sent its official government aircraft, and the cost for bringing Ghezali home was over half a million SEK. Everyone seemed to be happy, even the foreign minister Freivalds seemed to enjoy the media attention, praising the “Swedish persistency”. During the press conference later on, on the subject of Sweden’s outcries during the past years, Ghezali himself seemed confused however, and was being prompted (or “assisted” if one wants to put it diplomatically) by the Guantanamo Group’s chairman, the journalist Gösta Hultén, who whispered in his ear what to say, obvious for everyone to see. The press conference itself was criticized by a journalist, since the same Hultén had decided who would be allowed to attend and who would not, and who was allowed to take photographs etcetera (DN was barred). In the same article one could also read that already in 1983 he had published a book called “The Media Left” with co-author the now infamous PhD Samuelsson (mentioned earlier), the same Samuelsson who later thought it justified to hate Swedish Jews.Ghezali says at the conference that he will have no problems returning to a normal life in Sweden. One week later the same Hultén attacks the press for being “hostile to immigrants” in an article in Aftonbladet. The “Guantanamo Group” was not unified later, after the press conference, regarding the proposed innocence of Ghezali. As a matter of fact only one out of six who were asked were reported to think then that he actually was innocent. In the same article is was made clear that Hultén informs (through his wife) that Ghezali doesn’t want to answer any further questions and has gone into hiding from journalists. Later the Foreign Ministry releases previously classified documents, as reported:

…“In the Foreign Ministry’s report there were many issues that were “hard to explain” in Ghezali’s story ‘His lack of memory is extensive, and he says that he can’t remember things that he reasonably shouldn’t have forgotten. If Ghezali speaks the truth he has, for example, traveled around the world without knowing or caring about where he was going, or with whom.’”…

Later Thomas Hammarberg at the Palme Center informs that the Guantanamo group has dissolved. At the group’s webpage this is also confirmed and it states that the website will be shut down. Ghezali had become a Swedish citizen in 1988 (he was born in 1979) and his father had said that his son went to Algeria to do “army service” when being arrested in Portugal on suspicions of armed bank robbery, and he then later emerged in Afghanistan. Ghezali had traveled extensively around Europe, yet he never held down a job, and claimed that he got some funding from the Swedish employment office. The lawyer Peter Ahltin will handle the case and mean to sue the US for millions on behalf of his client.

Meanwhile the infamous Butcher of Baghdad, the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, responsible for several brutal aggression wars, including the scud bombing of Israeli cities in 1991, and the weight of the slaughter of millions of people in the Middle East on his conscience (including medieval torture chambers), now wants to go to Sweden for some strange reason.

” The former Iraqi dictator wants to be in a Swedish jail. The reason is the short sentence time and the comfortable prisons, says his lawyer… The reason is also Sweden’s humane criminal care system… You have very short sentence times and the prisons seem more comfortable than many other places”…

Indeed, only three weeks later DN reports: “It feels like they [the inmates] have hotel standard”. A liberal MP politician and member of the board of the correctional system complained about the new prison in Kolmården, a former hospital. It is a well-known fact that Swedish prisons at this time have better standards regarding the inmates, than the Swedish schoolchildren have, or the social and medical care for old people.

Then the feared and sought after leader for Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, made an appearance on video tape, and the tabloid Aftonbladet explained “He spares Sweden” under the headline “Will not attack Sweden” and quoting from the speech: “If Bush says we hate freedom, then let him explain why we didn’t attack Sweden for example”.

After compiling this information, from publicly available sources to anyone with a computer and Internet connection, for a period of less than three years, a pattern emerges in this puzzle. It is forming a picture that is neither very encouraging for the Jews of Sweden, nor flattering for the Swedish society at large, regarding the situation of the Swedish Jews.Despite the fact that 14-year-old youngsters tell about harassment, stories that are made public in personal in-depth interviews, and despite urgent calls aimed directly at the government, they are met with deafening and devastating silence. The collective establishment, along with certain media and politicians in charge together with the church speak volumes of silence. A silence that only can be perceived as acknowledgement. Generations of Swedish Jews seem to be betrayed by their own country of birth.

These individual events lead to a clear and visible pattern, and Sweden is just a microcosm in Europe. In other news, from the neighboring country Norway, comes other worrying news about how the situation has changed for the Jews there. A small notice appeared two years after the urgent call where all Nordic Jewish representatives two years earlier felt compelled to write a letter of protest to all Nordic governments.

“Pressurized: Young Jews leave Norway

About 50 per cent of all young Jews in Norway choose to move abroad as they feel that anti-Semitism has increased significantly in Norway during the last couple of years.Rolf Kirschner, director at Det Mosaiske Trossamfunn in Oslo, says he is worried as more and more young Jews choose to leave Norway, reports the paper Vårt Land [Our Land].Kirschner claims that media contributes to stigmatize Jews, and he stresses that there are three main reasons why young Jews move abroad.‘Some want to study abroad, others want a larger Jewish environment, and some feel the increased pressure against Jews’, Kirschner said.He also said that many Jews are afraid to wear religious symbols and says that anti-Semitism is increasing in Norway. Kirschner claims that the media is responsible for a large part of it.‘It is not very pleasant to follow news media so one-sided, and many times, with a hurtful angle’, Kirschner said to the paper. ‘The way I see it, Israel is treated differently in many countries. Norwegian media should focus to a larger degree on other conflicts, in addition to the Middle East conflict.’”

The occupying Nazis wanted a Judenrein Europe, and the Nordic region might finally be on the way towards it now. It also seems that Swedish mainstream media have somewhat reluctantly been taking in views from regular Jews, Jews who aren’t set out to bash Israel. These days Swedish Jews seem to be granted media space in Israeli dailies instead, when the need arises. As it does frequently, at an ever increasing rate.

Earlier this year even the Israeli paper Ha’aretz had published a personal story regarding the Swedish Jews’ situation.

“Daniel Schechner, a 21-year-old law student from Stockholm, makes sure to conceal even the slightest hint of his Jewish identity when he goes out in public.

When he says that he has a double identity, he means that at work, school and in the street he would not voluntarily reveal his religious belonging. He uses his non-Jewish last name, which he asks the reporter not to reveal. He does not dream of walking down the street wearing a skullcap, a Star of David or a T-shirt with Hebrew on it, and when he went to Israel, he told people in Sweden that he went to another, different country.

Schechner says that when he and his friends speak about ‘Jewish’ subjects like the synagogue or kashrut, they use code words. Nevertheless, the camouflage doesn’t always provide perfect protection. … Schechner, whose grandfather came to Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century, says that until three years ago, he was deeply rooted in the Swedish society, but that he is not so sure anymore that Jews have a future in this country. ‘I have a hard time with the idea that there is anti-Semitism here,’ he says. ‘But I have an even harder time with the unwillingness I feel from the Swedish establishment, to deal with the roots of the hatred that is directed towards the Jews living here.’”…

Another example is of course the Jewish boy Nadav Meyer who earlier bravely set an example for the Swedish situation, and stood up and spoke of his sad experiences. He was thereafter continuously being attacked in the streets, and his father has since then instead become even more active in English and Israeli media; one article sums up some of his family’s fate, since the Swedish political media establishments seem to be ignoring the situation in Sweden for harassed Jewish citizens.

…”Either Freivalds is severely out of touch with reality, or she is being somewhat flexible with the truth.

Here are the facts: For an anti-Semitic crime to work its way into the statistics by which Freivalds sets such store, Swedish law requires that there be 10 witnesses. The reason is that racial hatred has to have been spread for it to constitute a crime of incitement. If it is not spread (to the requisite number of witnesses), there is no crime to prosecute. Case closed.

I speak from personal experience. Several cases involving anti-Semitic attacks by Muslim youths on my 13-year-old son have been closed for precisely this reason. If the required number of witnesses cannot be furnished, the case does not get as far as court. Nor does it get to court if the perpetrators are too young to be prosecuted – which, unfortunately, describes a significant proportion of the perpetrators.

Freivalds went on to claim that “statistics are kept, and published annually. According to the latest figures, the number of anti-Semitic crimes in Sweden is declining.” Ms. Freivalds is apparently oblivious of the following: Most anti-Semitic crime in Sweden is perpetrated by youngsters of Arab and Muslim background. If they are under age, the case does not go to court – so it does not figure in Ms. Freivalds’ statistics. If the gangs attack a solitary Jew (usually a youngster), then here too there is no means of bringing a case against the perpetrators without the requisite number of witnesses. Again, such incidents do not make it into Freivalds’ statistics.”…

He later testifies in an interview that some of his other children feel more safe serving in the Israeli Defense Forces than walking down a street on Swedish soil.

“His elder siblings came to Israel and joined the army, declaring that it was safer for them to serve in the IDF than to be exposed to what is happening in Sweden.”.

The matter with the problem of 10 witnesses is noticed also at the Swedish-Israeli Information organization where the Jewish spokespersons in a joint letter with the father write:

“… To act in a situation that apparently demands ten witnesses for the crime to be proven [according to the HMF (similar to US hate speech) law].”

Is there any truth to this? If not, then where are the prosecutions and convictions against Muslim Arabs in Sweden for such violence, hate speech and incitements, and other breachings of such laws, when verbally/physically attacking the, supposedly protected by law, minority of Swedish Jews? Are there any prosecutions or convictions to be found at all at the beginning of this millennium, with over a hundred filed police complaints every year? What kind of signals does this send out to the perpetrators, and to the victims? There has been a lot of talk about the anti-Semitism in France. The reported statistics in Sweden speak for themselves. France has 600 000 Jews and 6 million Muslims. Sweden has about 18 000 Jews and 400 000 Muslims.Sweden 2003: 128 incidents with ties to anti-Semitism are reported to the police.France 2003: 247 anti-Semitic attacks are reported according to the French Interior Ministry.France has both acknowledged the problem and even started to address it with legislations. So what vile crimes have the Swedish Jews, youngsters as well as Holocaust survivors, committed in order to deserve this ongoing hate campaign against them for years on end on Swedish soil?

November 10 – After the arch terrorist billionaire and corrupt dictator Yassir Arafat finally dies in a French hospital after weeks of media charades, the Swedish new FM Freivalds, goes public as the first one to do so, and as usual with her political finger-tip sense, in the Swedish media, declaring her mourning on the State Radio that it is “with great sorrow she has received the message that Yassir Arafat has passed away, Arafat who embodied the struggle for a Palestinian state”.

November 19 – On behalf of the upcoming elections in the disputed areas, FM Freivalds proclaims that the (even classified by EU) terrorist group Hamas could very well be considered to legitimately participate in the PA elections “as long as they renounce terror”. Hamas later announces that they will not participate. It’s doubtful if the FM would dare to equally endorse al-Qaeda on the same premises to run for office in the Afghan state elections.

December 12 – It’s reported in an official press statement from the Uppsala Social Democratic local office, in co-operation with the Palme Center:

“Five representatives from our sister party Al-Fatah in Palestine visits Uppsala this week.”

The plan was for the “sister party” Al-Fatah to go on an informational tour, visiting Swedish schoolchildren. Later AP publishes more images coming from Hebron depicting various situations regarding “the sister party’s” other representatives, doing “party” saluting, Nazi-style.

The year ends with the US Department of State releasing yet another lengthy report, regarding the global anti-Semitism, where Sweden once again is honored with a chapter of its own.

My relatives in Israel had at this time claimed, somewhat stunned, that it was apparently safer to be in Israel than to be in Europe. And I agree when thinking of the new millennium and what had happened in it so far. At least in Israel they don’t have to be afraid of being assaulted and beaten in the streets for wearing a Star of David necklace. Pondering the new situation, one comes to another conclusion:

It’s safer to be an Arab Israeli citizen in Israel, than it is to be a Swedish Jew in Europe.